Wikipedia:Help desk/Archive 9

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This is an archive of the help desk. Please do not edit this page. To ask a new question, go to this page.

[edit] Archive of past questions

Contents


[edit] I need a "works cited" for this website and an article I found on social class?

I am doing a paper on social class and I somehow stumbled upon this awesome website. Kudos to the editor! I have tried numerous times to find the editor's name and the author of the article I read on social class (www.wordiq.com/definition/Upper_class) Could someone please assist me with this? Any information would be greatly appreciated.

Sincerely,

Christina

Dear Christina - See Citing Wikipedia →Raul654 18:52, Sep 26, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Finding Sound Files on Wikipedia

I was wondering if there was an easier way to find the sound files on Wikipedia than stumbling upon them? Is there a list of them available? thanks --Roisterer 02:21, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Special:Imagelist, search for ogg, wav, etc.--Patrick 09:01, 2004 Sep 27 (UTC)

[edit] How can I clean up old search topics that come up in the SEARCH input field?

How can I clean up old search topics that come up in the SEARCH input field?

On Wikipedia's first page is the input field for the search string. When I click this, all old search item I have ever looked for come up. Some are out dated, some annoying, some just clutter the picture. Sometimes I would like to delete the all.

Is there any way to erase them all or edit this list?

If there isn't any, I strongly recommend to add an option "clear history". How many decades and centuries do you want to let these data accumulate into data graveyards? Obviously they become less and less useful over time if you cannot clear or edit these lists.

If such an option is there, it is very well hidden. I doubt that it exists.

Thanks, Karl Scherer

These search terms are stored in your browser, not on Wikipedia. To get rid of them, you'll have to clear your browser's stored forms data (depending on which browser you use, you probably won't be able to selectively clear the search term list...) -- Ferkelparade π 09:10, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Try placing your mouse over the list items and pressing del. — Kieff | Talk 04:01, Oct 4, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Plural in article titles???? Upper/lower case both valid???

Wikipedia urgently needs a cleanup of all articles that have upper/lower case wrong and/or plural in the title where there should be singular.

Two examples:

Apart from the (correct) article with title

there are also two other articles on the same topic called

As far as I understand Wikipedias, they both should not exist at all and be replaced by reference to "Mechanical puzzle" (maybe some of the text can be salvaged and integrated).

Similarly, apart from the (correct) article with title

there are also two other articles on the same topic called

The more unclean titles exist, the more Wikipedia guarantees that the information can NOT be find.

Obviously there is no mechanism to avoid these wrongdoings, so I uggest maybe someone writes a computer program to check for such plural-containing article titles.

Also, even when only one article exists on a topic and its title is a plural for no good reason, this should be changed into a singular.

Also, unnecessary Upper Case Words in titles should be eliminated for consistency. But of course the first complaint is the most important, because it stops people from finding information in Wikipedia, and I suppose we all agree that this is to be avoided.

Cheers, Karl Scherer

I checked the first set of three: the problem has been taken care of long ago, by making redirects.--Patrick 08:55, 2004 Sep 27 (UTC)
Likewise with the second set of three. Karl if you click on the link to Chess puzzles it actually redirects you to the page Chess puzzle. Theresa Knott (taketh no rest) 10:05, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)

[edit] "you have messages" message

I keep on getting the "you have messages" message when I am not logged in (like right now). I go to check it out and there is nothing there. how do I get rid of it? Carole.a (my logged in name)

Since I note that User talk:212.116.232.34 does at least have some text on it, I suspect that this may be some kind of "caching" issue, and the message is left over from when this was new - see Wikipedia:Clear your cache. If that doesn't help, it might be worth doing a quick nonsense edit (add a . or something) on the page to make sure the software notices you. And of course, the best way of avoiding it is to always log in before you do anything, but I appreciate that may be annoying, especially on a shared computer where you can't use "remember my password" type features. If this carries on happening to you, it may be you've uncovered a bug in the system, so let us know and we'll see if we can fix it. - IMSoP 16:35, 27 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Did it all, but no go. I cleared my "cache" (thanks for the link to the very clear explantions "how to"). I added something to the talk page. Shut down the computer and restarted it. I bet you it is the true sign of a computer dummy: I case of doubt shut it down and hope. Next I think I am left with "use a bigger hammer" approach to life, "just ignore it" or, "just log on, why don't you?!" though this requires a certain discipline! Thanks for your help. If this thing ever goes away I will let you know. To be honest it is mildly annoying but I am not all twisted up about it. Carole a 09:23, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)
The message is gone. Thank you. Carole a 15:52, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Tabs moving

Why on some pages do the tabs move? That is, the "edit this page," "watch" and so forth move from being in a horizontal row to a more-or-less vertical column when I bring my mouse over a tab. Thanks. Maurreen 00:00, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

That's a CSS-related bug in Internet Explorer, if I remember rightly. I remember it being discussed while the new site skin was being designed, and I'm not sure there was ever a full solution found. You'll just have to put up with it, I'm afraid. - IMSoP 00:06, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Thanks, I do have old version of Explorer, I think. Maurreen 00:29, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Ooops... I think this was for the Reference Desk... And now I do not know how to delete it. Can somebody delete this for me, please?

I think Ferrari is cited not correctly here, but I do not know, where the mistake has been made.

On

 Italic texthttp://mathworld.wolfram.com/QuarticEquation.html

they cited him correctly, I think...

Does anybody see the mistake quickly (I would need at least several days, because: I am not so good in mathematics)...

-Arne

[edit] Rqst move Totie Fields from "T" to "F" on U.S. comedians page

Hello,

Could someone move Totie Fields on the Category: US comedians page? She is listed under T. She should go under F since "Totie" is her first name and "Fields" is her last name. Thank you. C Adams

I just did that change, but the beautiful thing about wikis is that you can edit everything yourself if you notice something's amiss :) For reference, cat entries are sorted by adding "|sortkey" to the article's category entry, so the entry in the Totie Fields article now reads [[Categories:U.S. Comedians|Fields, Totie]]. -- Ferkelparade π 10:06, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)


[edit] Request to take over user account

I'm known as "User:Shannon" on several wikipedias, and would like to keep this name when editing in the english version as well. But the user name is already in use. Unfortunately, User:Shannon never made any edits, and has no user & discussion page as well, so I cannot reach him. I would like to take over his account, since he obviously does not use his, but how?

Maybe some admin / developer can help me. My "home" Wikipedia is the german, please leave a message on [1].

Thanks!!

Shannon

I have heard of this being done before. It would require a developer, however. Isomorphic 22:47, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I would suggest asking on either one of the IRC channels (#MediaWiki would be your best bet) or the "wikitech-l" mailing list. - IMSoP 22:50, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Newspaper Article

I want to add pictures to The Irish Times and Irish Independent. I have both newspapers - how should I add them? Scan just the masthead? The whole front page? Is this fair use? JOHN COLLISON | (Ludraman) 16:04, 28 Sep 2004 (UTC)

IMO it is fair use. I would just scan the masthead unless either of these papers has a especially interesting layout of their front pages. If you do decide to scan the whole front page reduce the image size down so that it is not possible to actually read the articles. Theresa Knott (The torn steak) 21:51, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)

[edit] User talk and templates

I know that the {{ns:3}} template tag produces a User_talk substitution, but is there an easier way to get a Talk link in a signature, like with ~~~~? I'm using the rather convoluted [[{{ns:3}}:Alphax|(talk)]] at the moment - Alphax (talk) 10:28, Sep 29, 2004 (UTC)

  • Using the following code is easiest in my opinion:
[[User:Alphax|Alphax]] [[User_talk:Alphax|(talk)]]

This way there's no chance of forgetting which ns code it was. Calling it User_talk actually makes sense, so it's easier to remember.

Hope that helps, if not, drop a note on my talk page :) [[User:MacGyverMagic|Mgm|(talk)]] 21:28, Sep 29, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] My watchlist and contributions don´t show

A few hours ago I registered at wikipedia. I edited a few pages and added some to my watchlist. I checked my watchlist and my contributions and they did show up. After that I logged out. When I came here again, I wanted too see if there were any changed made on pages that are on my watchlist or my contributions. But when I open my watchlist or my contributions it says there are no items on them. --Mixcoatl 12:25, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I'm seeing this as well. -- Cyrius|✎ 12:54, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I'm also having problems with my watchlist. Items I delete not being deleted. New changes not showing up. Paul August 13:30, Sep 29, 2004 (UTC)
Mine seem to be working OK, although somewhat slowly at times. Are you sure that you're logged in under your user name and that for some mysterious reason you have not been logged out at some point? That has happened to me a couple of times over the last two months -- maybe something to do with Temp files or Cookie files being screwed around with by Internet Explorer. Just a thought.... Hayford Peirce 18:29, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I'm extremely sure I was logged in, given that I have a custom CSS that changes the look of Wikipedia rather noticably. But things seem to be working normally now. -- Cyrius|✎ 21:16, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)
  • Wikipedia just had a server move and had several problems during that period; downtime and slow connections being the most noticeable. I think the problem was just temporary. [[User:MacGyverMagic|Mgm|(talk)]] 21:31, Sep 29, 2004 (UTC)
His morning contribs seem to be showing now. Salasks 23:16, Sep 29, 2004 (UTC)

Just to note that I had this problem the other day - I was being served an out-of-date watchlist, as though the last few hours hadn't happened; rather spooky, really. I suspect it was just the side-effect of either maintenance or excessive load on the server. Annoying, but temporary. - IMSoP 23:18, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)

[edit] User Edit Counts

I could have sworn that I posted this question earlier, but then I came back and couldn't find it anymore.

How do you know how many edits you have made without actually sitting there and counting every one on your "My Contributions" page? I am assuming there is an easier way to do this.--ScottyBoy900Q∞ 02:18, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)

The subject is discussed above at Counting number of contributions. (I made this response and it appeared on the Page history but not on the page; if it turns up twice feel free to delete this one.) JamesMLane 06:46, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Thanks, didn't see that up there. --ScottyBoy900Q∞ 23:21, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)
This question is a FAQ. ✏ Sverdrup 14:53, 3 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Just for the record - I invented this technique :) →Raul654 20:17, Oct 3, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] American or British English?

Obviously, with writers from around the world, there are various "dialects" of English used here at Wikipedia, and I was wondering which was correct. That is, is it color or colour? Do quotation marks go inside or outside punctuation?

Thanks. Vague Rant 05:01, Sep 30, 2004 (UTC)

Try this: Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Usage and spelling. Adam Bishop 05:08, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)
The issue of quotation marks is addressed elsewhere in the Manual of Style: Wikipedia:Manual of Style#Quotation marks. JamesMLane 05:19, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Meetup definition page

Your search engine is temporarily out of order, and when I reached the Meetup definition page via Yahoo, I made a startling discovery: In the second sentence of the very first paragraph, which is uneditable, the words "such as" are use twice, back-to-back, duplicating them unecessarily. As that segment isn't editable, and I can't find an "errors and ommissions" tab, I am sending this comment to you in the hopes that this grammatical error can be corrected. After all, an encyclopedia, like a dictionary, should have correct spelling and grammar.

I hope my time and effort is not wasted.

Thank you,

James Taylor

PS. If you wish to respond, or I can help in any way, you can get my email address from Meetup. The name is "Melior", and I am the organizer for the "Capitalist Party Meetup" in Vancouver, BC, Canada. If you had an errors and ommissions page that was not publicized, I would have given you my email adress directly.

Fixed. James Taylor, thanks for the notice. The reason you couldn't find an errors and omissions page is that every page is its own errors and omissions page. If you see a mistake, just click on "Edit this page" and fix it. JamesMLane 06:52, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Perhaps he was looking at a mirror site. Paul August 14:56, Sep 30, 2004 (UTC)
He said "that segment isn't editable" (about an error that preceded any headings). My guess was that he noticed the edit bars along the right margin of the text, but overlooked the "Edit this page" links in the menus along the top, left and bottom of the page. For anyone else who misses the distinction: "Edit this page" opens the entire article and lets you edit anything in it. The "edit" link to the right of each heading opens only that section. In a long article it can be a convenience, because you don't have to scroll down to find the point where you want to make a change. Text that precedes any heading isn't accessible by such a link, but "Edit this page" still works, and of course you won't have to scroll very far. JamesMLane 16:51, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Article statistics?

Short question: Is it possible to obtain statistics about individual articles? - Logariasmo 07:12, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Statistics about what, exactly? — Kieff | Talk 07:53, Sep 30, 2004 (UTC)
The number of visitors to an article, and the origin (or 'referer') of the visit.--Logariasmo 22:11, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)
No we used to have hit counters way back when but they had to be dropped because they placed too much loaf on the servers :-( Theresa Knott (The torn steak) 22:35, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)
And as if all that bread wasn't bad enough for the servers, it placed quite a bit of load on them also. ;-) Jwrosenzweig 23:52, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)
The pun in your edit summary was terrible. Shame! Isomorphic 00:08, 1 Oct 2004 (UTC)
There's a monthly usage page, which includes hit counts for each article. September's is here. Ðåñηÿßôý | Talk 15:21, 3 Oct 2004 (UTC)

[edit] adding links

i am creating an article for an author and wanted to add a link to a book he wrote for a synopsos ex: toxin when i add the link it directs to a page about the word toxin. how can i fix this??

A link entered as [[Toxin]] will point to whatever article has the name Toxin. When more than one article has the same natural title, one or both of them has to be given another name; you can then make links to each of them look the same, by doing something like [[Toxin (book)|Toxin]]. See Wikipedia:Disambiguation for details. - IMSoP 17:57, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)


[edit] Uploading images for personal use

I would like to post a screenshot of my customized stylesheet on my userpage. Is this acceptable and how exactly do I go about doing this? --Will2k 18:09, Oct 1, 2004 (UTC)

Yes it's acceptable. To do it save the screenshop in .png format, with a sensible name (e.g. Will2k's stylsheet screenshot) then hit the "upload file" and put a copyright template in the summary ( e.g. {{GNDL}}). Once it's uploaded go to you user page an put it in in the form[[Image:Will2k's stylsheet screenshot.png|thumb|200px|This is my customized stylesheet pretty cool eh?]] . Let me know if you have any trouble but it's all pretty easy. Theresa Knott (The torn steak) 18:45, 1 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Ok, I do know that much, I was just concerned that filling up Wikipedia with personal images would be frowned upon, and thought maybe there are several places to upload for different areas of Wikipedia. I'll just be doing one image so thanks for the help.--Will2k 23:28, Oct 1, 2004 (UTC)
The odd photo, added to the user page of a regular wikipedian is considered perfectly ok.Lot's of people do this. Abusing the goodwill of the wiikmedia foundation by using it to store personal files, or photo albums not intended for the encylopedia is frowned apon and the files get deleted very quickly. (This obviously doesn't apply to you, I'm just puttung here in case others get the wrong idea) Theresa Knott (The torn steak) 16:21, 2 Oct 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Help with standard.js to make it load?

No mater wat I type in standard.js it dus apsulutly nuthing in the page! I try downloading the raw JS file it try to load, and it downloaded a blank file. I try reload/refresh and it still not work. Wat rong with this? -- zzo38 19:24, 2004 Oct 1 (UTC)

[edit] Table wrapping

Hi, just created a table at the Netball World Championships page, and the external link section after it seems to be wrapping around the right hand side. How do I make it stop? Ziggurat 02:56, 2 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Take out the align="left" in the table. Goplat 03:16, 2 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Ah, thanks. Must've been a relic from before I converted the table from html.

Ziggurat 03:22, 2 Oct 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Watchlist

My Watchlist appears to have stopped updating. Anyone else having that problem? - Ta bu shi da yu 15:19, 2 Oct 2004 (UTC)

  • Same here, but it's corrected itself now. [[User:Noisy|Noisy | Talk]] 16:21, 2 Oct 2004 (UTC)
    • They were not updating because of a laggy DB server. Jeronim took that server out of the rotation, and the watchlists work fine now. →Raul654 11:48, Oct 3, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] User CSS question

I borrowed my css style from User:Fredrik (see User:Rdsmith4/monobook.css), and I'd like to enable the external link icon and the icon in front of my username at the top of every page. I found what I thought was the css to include the icons commented out, and I uncommented it, but now I simply have a blank space where the icon should be after every external link. Any suggestions? Ðåñηÿßôý | Talk 16:25, 2 Oct 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Accented Characters

When I do a accented character, the edit text for the character always shows as regular text if I put something after the accented character. How can I stop this?

Some advice is available at Wikipedia:Special characters. See if one of the methods there might solve your problem. JamesMLane 16:32, 3 Oct 2004 (UTC)

[edit] table help

The table on USS Lynx (AK-100) appears after the text and not to the right of it. I used the Wikiproject table set up by others and didn't change it, so I'm not sure why it's doing this. I'm off to read the table faqs again, but if someone has a quick fix, I'd appreciate it. Thanks. [[User:Gamaliel|Gamaliel Image:Watchmensmiley20.gif]] 18:39, 2 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Done. It just needed to be moved to the top of the article. [[User:Noisy|Noisy | Talk]] 19:07, 2 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Thanks. [[User:Gamaliel|Gamaliel Image:Watchmensmiley20.gif]] 19:16, 2 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Good grief, you've got my t-shirt as your sig, and I've only just noticed it. That's my avatar, in another place. [[User:Noisy|Noisy | Talk]] 23:54, 2 Oct 2004 (UTC)

[edit] License question

Is it O.K. to use text governed by this license:

PERMISSION IS GRANTED TO USE OR REPRODUCE THIS ESSAY PROVIDED THAT PROPER CREDIT IS GIVEN AS FOLLOWS: Hratch Tchilingirian, The Armenian Apostolic Orthodox Church (www.sain.org) 1996. Copyright 1996.

As attribution of credits is part of GNU-FDL, I'd guess it is O.K. but IANAL. -- Pjacobi 00:33, 3 Oct 2004 (UTC)

That's a BSD-style license, which is just fine for use here. (For more info, read the Copyright FAQ) →Raul654 11:47, Oct 3, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] IP Address Edits merged with account

Is there a way of merging the contribution history designated to my IP address (done while not logged on) with my named user history? Dainamo 11:22, 3 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Yes. See Wikipedia:Changing attribution for an edit. →Raul654 11:45, Oct 3, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Contents of user pages

Is there a policy on what is and is not appropriate content for user pages? I've recently discovered one that has questionable elements. Tregoweth 17:23, Oct 3, 2004 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:user page. Paul August 18:45, Oct 3, 2004 (UTC)
Ugh, don't start policing user pages. --[[User:Eequor|η♀υωρ]] 20:14, 3 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Like it or not, pages in the User: namespace are part of Wikipedia. They use the same software and take up the same server space, bandwidth, and money. Certainly, there are much looser regulations on User pages than other namespaces (except maybe Talk), but things like posting copyvio material or using User pages to make personal attacks (for example, maintaining a "blacklist") are subject to the proper actions. --Slowking Man 00:16, Oct 4, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] User:Unhelpful user

What is User:Unhelpful user, and how would it end up on my watchlist without me placing it there? --[[User:Eequor|η♀υωρ]] 19:23, 3 Oct 2004 (UTC)

When a page is moved, the new title is automatically added to your watchlist. Goplat 19:25, 3 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Is there any way to find out which page it may have been originally? --[[User:Eequor|η♀υωρ]] 20:11, 3 Oct 2004 (UTC)
It was your user page. Someone move-vandalized your user page yesterday, and someone else came along and fixed it. →Raul654 20:14, Oct 3, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Help with category

I just created Category:Planetary engineering on my user page User:Viriditas/sandbox and now I can't delete my user page from the category. What did I do wrong, and how can I prevent this from happening in the future? Thanks. --Viriditas 02:34, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Ok, it's gone now, but the removal took about five minutes. Any ideas why this is happening? --Viriditas 02:40, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Probably you were seeing a page on your browsers cache. See: Wikipedia:Clear your cache — Kieff | Talk 03:59, Oct 4, 2004 (UTC)
That's what I originally thought, but after clearing my cache and checking the page on another machine, the article was still a member of the category. Apparently this is a known bug referred to as Bug 632. I was just wondering if anyone knows why this is happening, because it doesn't always occur. --Viriditas 05:25, 4 Oct 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Where to report doubles in the future?

I found both a stub Juan Luis Vives and a good article Juan Luís Vives. Where to report doubles in the future? Please look also at ca:Joan Lluis Vives i Marc. Wath name should be used? Gangleri 03:23, 2004 Oct 4 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Duplicate articles Rmhermen 03:50, Oct 4, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Wrong move

Seanieboy92 moved the article on Jacques-Yves Cousteau to the page Document1 - Microsoft Windows I am not sure where this should be reported but I made a mistake I copied content from Document1 - Microsoft Windows and moved it to Jacques-Yves Cousteau which means the edit history is in Document1 - Microsoft Windows. Please make amends.

Second thing - can anyone tell me how to find where to report problems like this.

And finally - why are Help Desk and Village Pump not being archived anymore? --Ankur 04:16, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)

That's extremely bizarre...perhaps they were trying to save the page as a Word document. Well, whatever they were trying to do, I've fixed it now. Adam Bishop 04:23, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Preferences not working

I set on my preferences to underline links and do not justify paragraphs. But, for some reason, I'm oftenly getting links without underlines and with the paragraphs justified.

When I go check again the peferences, everything is normal, so I guess they're not working for some reason.

Is this some sort of bug, or perhaps an ongoing problem? — Kieff | Talk 05:09, Oct 5, 2004 (UTC)

I don't know about paragraphs, but I can confirm the underlined-links-weirdness - i often see that when browsing Wikipedia with Firefox. Have never seen it when using IE, so it might be a Firefox bug (or at least a Firefox-related issue in the Wiki code). Which browser are you using? -- Ferkelparade π 23:33, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)
I'm currently in Opera 7.21 — Kieff | Talk 05:34, Oct 13, 2004 (UTC)
I had the problem with no underlined links yesterday using IE, but today it is working OK Petersam 00:10, 7 Oct 2004 (UTC)
I've seen the "justification issue" a couple of times and others have reported it elsewhere. Emptying your browser's cache can fix the problem - for awhile. Paul August 05:14, Oct 13, 2004 (UTC)
Cleaning the cache didn't worked for me — Kieff | Talk 05:34, Oct 13, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Standard index for main article of category?

I was wondering if there is an existing policy on where the "main" article of a category should be indexed. I've seen a "blank" index: like [[Category:History| ]], a * index [[Category:History|*]] and just a normal index [[Category:History]], and I'm not sure which is the best. —siroχo 05:16, Oct 5, 2004 (UTC)

The text after the | character is used only when sorting the list, not on the list item itself.
[[Category:History|*]] (and probably [[Category:History| ]] as well) are used to place these items at the top of the list, in order to bring up the items with more relevance or to group items with common relevance. Using the category link without any piped text (text after the |) will sort this item on the category page according to the page title.
So, my guess is, whatever works is enough. — Kieff | Talk 05:41, Oct 5, 2004 (UTC)

There are some attempts on categories modelling an "is-a" relation. For such cases the main article about the topic shouldn't be categorited into this category at all, you should use "See also" to link it. -- Pjacobi 21:32, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Want to delete a Messed up VfD

I attempted to put Thesis Parade on VfD but somehow I've got things a bit confused. The boiler plate shows up on Thesis Parade, and if I follow "This pages entry" I find my vote for deletion, but when I look on Wikipedia:Votes for deletion there is no mention of Thesis Parade. Could explain why nobody else has voted!

I'm a relative newby and I'm gradually finding my way around. I now realise that the best solution to the original problem is to make the Thesis Parade page a redirect to Reed College since that's where the material really belongs.

So how do I tidy up here, or do I need a Sys-Op's help?

--Cje 20:29, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I don't think you need any help. It looks like somebody added a VfD notice back in April, but didn't realize that there was more to the process. Follow the instructions at Wikipedia:Votes_for_deletion#VfD_footer to finish adding the article to the VfD page. Seems like a clear deletion candidate to me. —Triskaideka 20:55, 5 Oct 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Writing in Chinese and tables

Hello, I have two questions about how to make my Wikipedia pages better. How do you find the Unicode equivalent of Chinese characters? I am trying to add the Chinese station names to the List of Hong Kong MTR stations page, but I keep getting ?? marks unless I add Unicode notation.

Second question, how do you create the tables that have a list of articles an an Icon, such as the Countries in the Commonwealth, or Nations in North America. Thank you! PZFUN 05:24, 6 Oct 2004 (UTC)

You didn't specify what type of computer you're using, but if you're on a Mac, I suggest you install UnicodeChecker, which is freeware. With this installed, you can just type in your non-ASCII characters as usual, then select them and select (App Menu):Services:Unicode:Unicode -> HTML Entities and the characters will be converted to Unicode entities. (Hey MediaWiki developers! Check out the mb_string module for PHP; it's awesome, and it makes Unicode compatibility a non-issue!) Garrett Albright 05:29, 7 Oct 2004 (UTC)

[edit] what type of processor?

Moved to Wikipedia:Reference Desk

[edit] RE: Password

How do I recover my password without my e-mail on file?

Username: Mistress

-Ami Hughes

(personal info edited out)
  • It might not be a good idea to post your personal info on here. Anyway, that's just why an email adress should be on file. I'll see if I can find out what you should do. -- [[User:MacGyverMagic|Mgm|(talk)]]

[edit] "non-commercial" image issue

After having a welcome message - I put up the following:

"Thank you for the welcome after I put up Hardangerfjord which I discovered was not covered yet while searching for it. Hope there is no problem in having a Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.0 setup for the photos. Have quite a number of original photos I can share with Wikipedia if that is no problems."


Got the following answer from Meelar

"Actually, there might be an issue with the "non-commercial" bit. We try to avoid non-commercial images, because it will prevent their being reused by the sites that mirror us, and this is not compliant with the GFDL (see Wikipedia:Copyrights for more). I'd recommend you raise the question on Wikipedia:Help desk--my grasp of the copyright law here is slippery, and I wouldn't rely on me for a clear statement of your options.

I do hope that you keep contributing, especially images; they're a crucial resource for an encyclopedia, and we're woefully short."


So to the issue itself, as seen from my side (-:

As said, I have thousands of images - especially from Norway and Egypt. Being a professional artist, originally in the area of fine art paintings - I have now added the use of camera to my profession. As I also work with consultancy and tour planning for travellers who need tailor made travels - I highly depend on these photos to be able to both show and explain destinations and to use these as highly needed images to my articles.

When photos in addition is purchased by other commercial publications (online as offline), these photos have both become part of a needed resource for income - and a images I don't want let other start to tweak without my permission (the last is mostly the artist in me I guess).

I have no problems in giving a free licence even to commercial entities when related to the work or mirroring of Wikipedia - but the problem is to have photos in Wikipedia for a totally free use when I on the other side have sold and will sell same or similar to commercial media.

If there is a way for me to protect my back and at the same time share my photos with Wikipedia and mirrors - then I will be the first to say "hey, that's great"

Can you use Creative Commons perhaps? I don't know enough to comment further, unfortunately. - Ta bu shi da yu 13:13, 8 Oct 2004 (UTC)
I'm afraid the GFDL license is specifically for "totally free use", which may not be compatible with your personal commercial goals. We run into this over and over again when soliciting photos for use on Wikipedia; while it's easy to ensure attribution (under a Creative Commons license as Ta bu shi da yu suggests), we cannot guarantee the downstream uses of your photos -- all the GFDL requires is that re-users do not try to claim copyright on the work themselves, and that they pass on the usage rights to others. It's simply a fact of open-content availability that what is meant to provide education to all -- Wikipedia CDs will soon be distributed for free among developing nations as well -- will inevitably also end up not just on ad-laden mirror sites, but also probably on calendars, coasters and clip-art collections.
My one suggestion might be to examine your archives for photos that you might not have a commercial interest in. Surely there may be a one or two on a given roll (memory card?) that you will not be using in your business, nor are too sentimentally attached to artistically. Granted that these are not likely to be the most beautiful images for our purposes, but they may be better than nothing at all. And perhaps during future photo-taking expeditions, you can keep an eye open for extra shots that might be specifically useful to Wikipedia (and not to your personal needs); this kind of volunteerism is not rare among our Wikiphotographers, and is profoundly appreciated!
As an artist myself, I applaud both your generous instincts and your caution; only you can make the decisions about how and whether to license your own work. Please don't let me discourage you from contributing anything at all -- I really believe in what we do here, and I believe that we can always find ways to contribute our creativity without undermining our personal interests. Best wishes, Catherine | talk 19:00, 8 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Actually, now that it's been further clarified for me: we vastly prefer images to be licensed under the GFDL -- it allows all of our material, both images and text, to be truly free. Although we don't encourage it, you MAY contribute under the Nonderiv-Noncommerc-2.0 -- just please be sure to add this template to the image page: {{cc-by-nd-nc-2.0}}, along with your own description of the image's source and your intended licensing details. However, these other Creative Commons licenses are preferred, as they provide cleaner access for downstream users:
* Attribution {{cc-by}}
* Attribution 2.0 {{cc-by-2.0}}
* ShareAlike {{cc-sa}}
* Attribution-Sharealike {{cc-by-sa}}
* Attribution-Sharealike 2.0 {{cc-by-sa-2.0}}
For more details and options, please see Wikipedia:Image copyright tags, and its accompanying talk page for discussion of some of the issues. Cheers! Catherine | talk 04:15, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Is it impossible to link to an article named "C+C Music Factory"

I'm getting a weird bug. I can't seem to create a link called C+C Music Factory. Obviously the plus sign is the offender. Any suggestions? --DropDeadGorgias (talk) 18:25, Oct 8, 2004 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Naming conventions (technical restrictions); you'll have to rename it something possible, then use the {{wrongtitle|title=C+C Music Factory}} at the top of the page. (See the C Plus Plus article for an example.) Catherine | talk 18:42, 8 Oct 2004 (UTC)

[edit] User subpage question.

There is a certain user from San Diego who periodically adds sneaky vandalism to various cartoon-related pages on Wikipedia. Previously, User:Morwen and I, along with other users, were recording appearances, etc, on User:Morwen/Cartoon. However, it appears that Morwen may be gone for some extended/unknown period of time, and the vandal is still active. I've put a similar subpage under my own name, but I was wondering it is appropriate to redirect another user's subpage to one's own, provided that it's for the same cause, etc? [[User:Rhymeless|Rhymeless | (Methyl Remiss)]] 00:59, 9 Oct 2004 (UTC)

  • I don't see a problem with it as long as the content is saved somewhere and as long as the user the subpage belongs to is notified on their talk page, so they can reclaim it on return. You might want to ask other users involved in the tracking of this vandal. [[User:MacGyverMagic|Mgm|(talk)]] 06:24, Oct 9, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Framed images messing up

Check out this:

In Opera, the framed version messes up on the bottom for some reason, as if the images was squeezed to 64x62.

I checked the Pixel art article under IE here and the images were squeezed a lot more.

Not sure what's going on here... — Kieff | Talk 09:14, Oct 9, 2004 (UTC)

Seemed to happen in Firefox too - the image on the left was stretched. Maybe the minimum frame size is bigger than the image is. --Golbez 09:11, Oct 9, 2004 (UTC)
I added some white padding because I thought it was that too, but didn't helped in anything — Kieff | Talk 09:14, Oct 9, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] need clarification for a definition of lambda convex function

Hello,

I am new to Wikipedia and don't know who I should contact. I found in Wikipedia a definition of a lambda convex function which I would like to seek a clarification. I thought the best would be to consult the author of the definition. I would appreciate if you could help me to find who the author is and how I could get in touch with him/her.

Your help is much appreciated

  Krzysztof Krakowski

My email address is kris@mcs.une.edu.au

As I see no article named lambda convex function and searches aren't turning anything up, I can't tell you who wrote the text in question. If you go back to the page and click the "History" tab, it will show you a list of all past revisions of the article, and who made the edit. From there you can find the author.
If the author is a logged-in user, the best way to contact them is through their User talk: page, which will be at "User talk:Username". If the person is anonymous (their username in the page history is recorded as an IP address), then you'll probably have a tough time getting a hold of them, and should ask for clarification on the article's talk page. -- Cyrius|✎ 01:14, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)

[edit] History merges

Assuming this is the apropos place to do so, I'd like to request two history merges for pages that were inappropriately cut-and-pasted by others:

Thanks.   :-)   –radiojon 07:15, 2004 Oct 11 (UTC)

Ok, I think that should do it. →Raul654 07:29, Oct 11, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Getting image revisions to stick

I attempted to correct an error in Renormalized-vertex.png, and the corrected version seems to have uploaded fine, but Wikipedia insists on linking to the earliest version of the image as the current one. Re-uploading didn't fix the problem, nor did reverting to the first corrected version. (To make absolutely sure it wasn't just a problem with my browser cache that was somehow resistant to explicit flushing, I even looked at the page in a different browser that had never visited the page before.)

I'm obviously at the point of thrashing about like a fool. Is this just a bug, or some sort of anti-image-vandalism safeguard, or is there something obvious that I'm missing (quite likely)? --Matt McIrvin 15:18, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)

There's various caches on the Wikimedia side of things, and sometimes they don't update like they should. The image appears to have the correct version now. -- Cyrius|✎ 17:51, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)

[edit] wishing to read a sociology article by an author

[edit] Firing system in marine gas turbine.

Hello sir, I need your help regarding firing system used in marine gas tubine. First of all i would like to know which type of firing system are used in marine gas turbine. If i have one model of gas turbine, can i guess this perticular firing system is used in this model?

Hoping for your kind positive response. Best regards, Rajesh Mehta.

This is better asked on Wikipedia:Reference desk. - Ta bu shi da yu 06:47, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Finding an old deleted page

(William M. Connolley 09:01, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)) I have reason to suspect that there used to be a page on the George C. Marshall Institute (or, err, some variation thereof). Probably a year ago, no idea when it disappeared. Is there any way to go back and search when it was deleted and why (if it ever existed of course).

  • It doesn't show up as an edit that I'd be able to view/restore, if that helps. [[User:Rhymeless|Rhymeless | (Methyl Remiss)]] 09:30, 12 Oct 2004 (UTC)
    • Thanks. In that case I suppose I'd better create it :-)

[edit] Can I get edits assigned to me from when I was an anon?

Is there a snytax to make a link to user:IP address 64.32.180.82 so that I can link on [[User:Rye1967}} to the very first changes I made when I didn't have a user-id

--User:Rye1967

Wikipedia:Changing attribution for an edit Rmhermen 19:43, Oct 12, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Category GFDL images

Category:GFDL images needs breaking down into sub cats. Too big a job for one person and I'd need guidance on the best way of sub-categorising images before being confident enough to do it myself. --[[User:Bodnotbod|bodnotbod » .....TALKQuietly)]] 02:54, Oct 13, 2004 (UTC)


[edit] Table help

Screengrab of the table that I want to create in Wiki-markup
Screengrab of the table that I want to create in Wiki-markup

Hey all, I would like to make a table that looks like the table on the right. How would I do this in wiki-markup? - Ta bu shi da yu 06:45, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Checked Wikipedia:How to use tables already? — Kieff | Talk 07:40, Oct 13, 2004 (UTC)
There's some links about table stuff on my user page. If you edit the page, the table at User:Noisy#Wikilinks may give you some ideas on how to start. Otherwise, contact User talk:Wapcaplet who seems a whizz at tables. Below is a really simple start table. [[User:Noisy|Noisy | Talk]] 18:45, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)
first header exclamation mark makes it bold
first entry second entry third entry
vert bar hyphen starts a new line
cells start with a vert bar or a double bar if on the same line
Thanks for the help all, but what I want to know is how to get the black solid lines into the table. - Ta bu shi da yu 22:34, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Look at the source of this one:

first header exclamation mark makes it bold
first entry second entry third entry
vert bar hyphen starts a new line
cells start with a vert bar or a double bar if on the same line

Pjacobi 23:25, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)

There appears to be a space between the cells... what causes this? Also, how do I make a vertical line down one column. - Ta bu shi da yu 03:52, 14 Oct 2004 (UTC)

The spaces are because there is a separate border at the bottom of each cell, and there's a gap between the cells. This probably delivers what you want, but is complex. [[User:Noisy|Noisy | Talk]] 17:50, 14 Oct 2004 (UTC)

"cellspacing=0" gets rid of the gaps between the cells! [[User:Noisy|Noisy | Talk]] 10:18, 16 Oct 2004 (UTC)

first header exclamation mark
makes it bold
first entry second entry
vert bar hyphen
cells start with a vert bar
third entry
starts a new line
or a double bar if on the same line

[edit] Search problems

Dear Wikipedia,

I just googled "pork barrel politic" and got directed as one of the first hits to an excellent Wikipedia article. When i searched for the very same term in Wikipedia directly, it didn't produce a result. Could you please explain to me how I should use the search function?

Many thanks, Silje

The problem seems to be that Google is doing a full-text search on all articles, while Wikipedia's own search by default just looks for a matching article title. Since the article in question is called Pork barrel (without politics), it won't show up when searching for all three terms. However, the search results page will give you the option to do a Google search on all Wikipedia articles if no matching article was found.
(Note: Wikipedia also has ist own full-text search, which in principle eliminates this problem. However, full-text search is very often disabled for performance reasons :P ) -- Ferkelparade π 07:41, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Looks like I've broken an article. How do I restore it?

Hi everybody. I just reverted some vandalism in the Homosexuality article, and it seems to be broken now. It shows this error message:

The database did not find the text of a page that it should have found, named "Homosexuality,oldid=6549621".
If it is a recently changed page, trying again in a minute or two will usually work. Alternatively, you may have followed an outdated diff or history link to a page that has been deleted.
If this is not the case, you may have found a bug in the software. Please report this to an administrator, making note of the URL.

Does anybody know how to restore it? Thanks. Sietse 14:48, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Sietse, I don't know what caused the problem or how to avoid it, but I went to the article's history, opened the version you were reverting to, and saved it. It has solved the problem for me -- please go there and check (try reloading the page if you still see the error message). Sorry I can't explain why it happened, but maybe somebody else can. :-) Jwrosenzweig 15:05, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Thank you. It seems to be solved; I can see the article again too. Before asking this question, I also tried to revert another time, but that didn't work for me. Strange... Sietse 15:11, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)
It's not your fault - it's just a database bug which Tim Starling fixed at some point, but it seems to be recurring. I had the same problem a few weeks ago, but it went away soon enough. Ðåñηÿßôý | Talk 23:15, 14 Oct 2004 (UTC)

[edit] unable to edit an object

Hello, I've been doing some work on some of the articles covering non-commissioned officer ranks in the U.S. military, and I've run into something I don't know how to edit.

The object is a chart showing the rank structure of the four services, and is referenced in the wiki code as "{{US_enlisted_ranks}}." There doesn't seem to be any way to edit it on the article, nor an I find a location to edit the object itself.

The correction that needs to be made, fyi, is that the abbreviation "SMOMC" under the Marine Corps listing currently points to the Master Gunnery Sergeant article, and needs to be pointed at the Sergeant Major article, instead. Fox1 15:26, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Fox1, the change has apparently already been made (when I look at the link, at least), but here's the scoop for the future. Anything in { is a template -- the way to edit yours would be to go to Template:US_enlisted_ranks. Jwrosenzweig 15:33, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Thanks, now that I look at the code, the problem is with the redirect on Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps, not with this template. I'll go fix it. Fox1 15:46, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Help w Copyright

Hi, a new user (User:Raj2004) asked me for help with contacting a website or some such in regards to quotations. They might very well be fair use for all I know. Any help is appreciated. Here is a link to his request on my talk: User_talk:Sam_Spade#Dvaita_and_Visatadvaita. I will direct him here, and a couple other places (like Wikipedia:Fair use and Boilerplate_request_for_permission). Cheers, Sam [Spade] 18:11, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Editing messages

I'm not a newcomer though don't know how to do this. How do you edit those tag on messages such as-

Official Club Name Ground Final Placing in 2006-07 Season
Ashton United Hurst Cross 18th in NPL Premier Division
Buxton The Silverlands 1st in NPL First Division
Eastwood Town Coronation Park 3rd in NPL First Division
Fleetwood Town Highbury Stadium 8th in NPL Premier Division
Frickley Athletic GMB Stadium 16th in NPL Premier Division
Gateshead Gateshead International 9th in NPL Premier Division
Guiseley Nethermoor Park 6th in NPL Premier Division
Hednesford Town Keys Park 7th in NPL Premier Division
Ilkeston Town New Manor Ground 12th in NPL Premier Division
Kendal Town Parkside Road 19th in NPL Premier Division
Leek Town Harrison Park 17th in NPL Premier Division
Lincoln United Ashby Avenue 15th in NPL Premier Division
Marine Rossett Park 4th in NPL Premier Division
Matlock Town Causeway Lane 5th in NPL Premier Division
North Ferriby United Church Road 13th in NPL Premier Division
Ossett Town Ingfield 10th in NPL Premier Division
Prescot Cables Valerie Park 14th in NPL Premier Division
Stamford Vic Couzens Stadium 8th, SL Premier Division
Whitby Town Turnbull Ground 11th in NPL Premier Division
Witton Albion Wincham Park 2nd in NPL Premier Division
Worksop Town Sandy Lane 21st in Conference North

found at the bottom of the page English northern premier league?

I have discovered a error in it I wish to correct though do not know how to access it to do so. Can someone who knows please leave a reply on my talk.

Anything inside {{braces}} is a template. In the case of {{English_Northern_Premier_League_teams}}, you can edit it by going to Template:English Northern Premier League teams and clicking the edit link as you would for any other article. See Wikipedia:How to edit a page for any general editing questions.
(Notice posted at User talk:Josquius.) —Triskaideka 20:37, 13 Oct 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Help with editing lag

Aloha. I originally posted a similar problem in Help with category. I'm having the same problem this time, except with my edits. The last two edits I've made have not shown up, and I'm wondering if that's normal when the server is busy. The status page says "slow", and I'm wondering exactly what that means. Does that mean it takes an hour for my edits to show up? I can see my edits when I go to my contributions page, or when I try and edit the page I updated, but I still can't view my edits on the actual article page. Can you see my edit on this page? I haven't had this happen before, (except with the short lag time removing a category) so I would be interested in any comments. And no, it's not my cache. --Viriditas 10:21, 14 Oct 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Blocking my edits

Could someone please check out my account, as yesterday I got a message saying my editing was blocked because of a dispute between two users who I have never heard of. I couldn't edit yesterday, and today I seem to be able to edit but the edits don't show up. Thank you. TonyClarke 15:17, 14 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Your user name doesn't appear on the block log. Your edits not showing up is part of a recent lag in updates noted by many, including myself. Rmhermen 21:23, Oct 14, 2004 (UTC)
It could be that you share the same IP address as a vandal or other unsavory character, which means if someone blocks that person, you get blocked as well. Simply email the administrator who blocked you and ask them to unblock you. That's a recurring problem with AOL proxies - i.e. when lots of people share a single IP address - and it has yet to be solved. I emailed AOL on the subject a while ago and they simply said "we're sorry, but too bad for you" or something to that effect. Ðåñηÿßôý | Talk 23:19, 14 Oct 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Contributions list

(moved from top of page)

I have made several edits to Periodic table and History of the periodic table, yet my contributions list remains blank. Also, on the cont. list, the link to my talk page is red, yet I have made edits to my talk page (User talk:Honeycake). Obviously I want my edits to show up, so please email me or elave a message on my talk page. Thanks--Honeycake 15:47, 14 Oct 2004 (UTC) PS: I added my talk page to my watchlist, when I go to my talk page the tab now says 'Unwatch' but my watchlist remains empty. PLEASE HELP. Thanks.

Your contributions list looks fine to me. However, I'm having a similar problem recently, whereby my watchlist and some other pages sometimes lag behind reality by a couple of hours or more. Try doing a forced refresh (something like Shift+Refresh, depending on your OS and browser) on the affected pages, and see if that works. (I sometimes have to try it more than once.) If that doesn't work, and you're still having the same problem after a few hours, post here again to let us know. —Triskaideka 18:57, 14 Oct 2004 (UTC)
There's lots of strange stuff that's been happening recently. I've seen some comments that out-of-date info is being retrieved from a SQUID server (whatever that is). Expect there to be more strange happenings over the weekend as the developers try to figure out the problem. [[User:Noisy|Noisy | Talk]] 22:37, 15 Oct 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Popup definitions possible within an article?

In the course of writing an article, I'd like to set up a "hot spot" on a word that, when clicked, will popup or display a small block of text, such as the definition of the word clicked. I had hoped that msg would have done that, but I found it does not correspond to msgbox or alert in javascript, as I had hoped.

The type of functionality I'm referring to can be found in most Windows applications Help systems; they work similarly to a tooltip (that might be produced by putting text in the TITLE attribute of an HTML element).

Can this be done some way in Wiki?

rbiggs@myfamilyinc.com

-ron

PS --- things I tried: [javascript:alert('test') Test This] --- code was not interpreted as [http://gosomewhere.com Test This], rendered Test This.

You can use a limited subset of HTML tags in editing Wikipedia articles. Hover over this sentence, then look at the code for it. Is that what you mean? I don't believe any special functionality for this feature exists.
Even though you can do this, speaking as both a reader and an editor, I recommend that you don't, as it is not an established standard within Wikipedia, and may be annoying to some people. If you would like to lobby for the establishment of such a standard, either Wikipedia:Village pump or Wikipedia_talk:Manual of Style might be the place to start. In the meanwhile, if a term needs to be explained, try wikilinking it instead. If a Wikipedia article on the term does not and should not exist, but a layperson might not understand it, then it's entirely appropriate—in fact, I'd say necessary—to define it within the body text of the article, even if that means breaking up sentences, paragraphs, or sections. Wikipedia articles are educational resources specifically intended for laypeople, so there's no reason to take shortcuts to educating our readers. —Triskaideka 22:07, 14 Oct 2004 (UTC)
A nice idea, but hard to implement. I agree with Triskaideka, here, especially on the brief definition within text, if necessary. Readers come from a wide variety of educational levels, and a little explanation is often very helpful. Another option, though, if the subject is not encyclopedic enough for its own article but not important enough to the article for inline definition, is to link to Wiktionary (instead of a Wikipedia article) by using [[wiktionary:word]] (wiktionary:word). Sure, they'll have to click off the site for a definition, but I think it's better than having a "feature" that will only ever work on a tiny fraction of the words in the encyclopedia -- those you and others were willing to tag this way. Still, it might not hurt to discuss the possibility of a future enhancement to the MediaWiki software at meta:MediaWiki feature request and bug report discussion -- perhaps one that would allow definitions from Wiktionary to be automatically displayed in a tooltip. Catherine | talk 23:09, 14 Oct 2004 (UTC)
MediaWiki will do this for piped internal links, setting the title attribute to the actual destination. This works well for acronyms, like MSG. -- Cyrius|✎ 01:42, 15 Oct 2004 (UTC)

[edit] How to manage my old Accont?

I lost old account. Can't remember it. How to find it? And...If I don't use this for somedays. is this deleted?? How to delete my old account?? Agoago 23:19, 14 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Is it the username you can't remember, or the password? If you can't remember the username, your account is lost. No accounts are ever deleted - I think it's impossible. If you have just forgotten the password, ask a developer to retrieve it for you. You may have to prove that you are the same person. Ðåñηÿßôý | Talk 23:22, 14 Oct 2004 (UTC)
If you can remember one of the articles that you edited, your username should be on the history. [[User:Noisy|Noisy | Talk]] 08:09, 15 Oct 2004 (UTC)

[edit] What to do with this page?

I was wondering where to alert other users about the following page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tshwane_university_of_technology It needs some kind of work on it: for instance, it's quotations may be of copyrighted material and it includes the second person pronoun "we": I'm sure other problems are easy to spot too. Where should I post about this page? dpen2000 00:54, 15 Oct 2004 (UTC)

In cases where you're not sure if there's a copyright violation, a quick google of a chunk of the text will often turn up the answer, following which you can report it at Wikipedia:Copyright problems. If you're not sure what the problem is, but know there's something seriously wrong with a page, send it to Wikipedia:Cleanup. Hope that helps, [[User:Meelar|Meelar (talk)]] 00:56, Oct 15, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Use of Wikipedia logo

I'm adding a "search Wikipedia" link to my home page and would like to mark it with a Wikipedia logo, just as Google lets me do. Is this allowed, and is there a standard logo I can download for this purpose as opposed to making my own?

I can't find a standard logo or policy. However, Image:Wiki.png and the logos on m:Logo history are, I assume, available under the terms of the GFDL (although I think it's rather strange that I can't find explicit notification of that, so maybe you shouldn't take my word for it). In any case, they may be a little big for your purposes. If you can verify that a certain image is GFDLed, then you can of course modify it and use your modification in accordance with the license. In fact, if I'm not just dumb and we really don't have any existing link images, you could just make one up, release it under the GFDL, and upload it for us, and it could become our new link image.
I hope this string of noncommital theorizing was of some use to you. —Triskaideka 16:17, 15 Oct 2004 (UTC)
The legal status of the image does indeed seem to be rather vague: I can only find lots of places where people have asked and not been answered. meta:Talk:Logo has a "provisional permission statement", and certainly the logo is considered a trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, but I can't see anyone minding if you're using it in order to publicise Wikipedia.
I'm sure I saw a page with some suggested buttons and banners on once, though... ah, here we go: Wikipedia:Banners and buttons (hmm, navigating via Google-search, meta:, de: and finally en:, and I could have just guessed the title in the first place. *sigh*). - IMSoP 16:35, 15 Oct 2004 (UTC)

{{ and how to edit

How does one edit a box indicated by this code : {{NS Uni}}, for example? I guess it must be easy, but I have no idea where to find help on this.

Peregrine981 09:35, Oct 15, 2004 (UTC)

Go to Template:NS Uni. - MattTM 10:20, Oct 15, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] International Organization for Migration instead of International Organisation for Migration

The article International Organisation for Migration should be a REDIRECT to International Organization for Migration and not vice versa. International Organization for Migration is the correct spelling of this organization. Can a sysop do this please. --ALE! 14:20, 15 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Done. -- Cyrius|✎ 14:32, 15 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Requested moves has been set up for this issue. I don't know if anyone has used it yet. Rmhermen 16:28, Oct 15, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Changing a redirect

The Non-linear_editing_system page seems to talk a lot about video editing software. I wanted to create a new page on video editing software but it seems that such a page already exists and automatically redirects. How can I stop the redirect? (So I can move software content over to the video editing software page where I can expand on it)

If you go to Video editing software, a message will appear on the page it redirects to saying "(Redirected from Video editing software)"; clicking the link in that takes you to the actual page, ignoring the fact that it's a redirect. Then you can edit the page in the normal way. - IMSoP 19:19, 15 Oct 2004 (UTC)